Penetration testing, does the term sound new to you?

Penetration test, pentesting or security testing is an application that is meant for testing any app, system or even a corporation for vulnerability.

Penetration testing helps the owner of a tested product to know whether a hacker can break the system or not. This is important to get your product tested as any missed data or leak of information can easily hamper the entire system while damaging its efficiency.

In this blog, I’ll cover all the important aspects of pentesting, as what is a penetration test, how it is conducted and why does your company invest in it? So, let’s get into details.

What is a Penetration Test?

Penetration testing is designed to assess your security before a hacker does. There are many penetration testing tools that simulate real-world attack scenarios to discover and exploit security gaps that could lead to stolen important data, credentials, intellectual property, personally identifiable information, data ransom or different other damaging business outcomes.

By exploiting all security vulnerabilities, the test helps organizations to determine how to alleviate and protect your important business data from future cybersecurity attacks.

A penetration test is tailor-made to check the real-world effectiveness of your device, app, software or system’s security controls against a skilled attacker. You can compare the test with security checks or compliance audits that analyze the existence of all the required controls and the correct configurations. Sometimes a 100% compliant company may still be at risk for human threat attacker.

How Your Company can Benefit from Penetration Tests?

A penetration test not only uncovers vulnerabilities of the system, it also actively exploits all vulnerabilities to prove real-world attack vectors against a company’s assets, important data and human security.

A penetration testing process involves different automated process frameworks that mainly focus on the team of testers, their experience and skills, and resources they leverage in order to check an active attack on your company.

Even most of the highly automated and advanced networks using the latest technologies are sometimes susceptible to the unique nature of the human mind which can think outside of the box and has the potential to analyze and synthesize.

Why Organizations Should Invest in Penetration Testing?

Since there are many reasons an organization must conduct a penetration testing. Here are a few reasons that effectively define the value of a penetration test for your organization.

•         Controls the viability of a particular set of attack paths.
•         Identifying higher-risk susceptibilities and lower-risk vulnerabilities exploited in a particular sequence.
•         Figure out those vulnerabilities that are impossible to identify with automated system or vulnerability scanning software.
•         Analyzing the magnitude of potential organization and functioning impacts of successful attacks.
•         Provides evidence to support increased investments in security personnel and technology to investors, customers and management.
•         An organization needs to determine the paths that can be used to gain access to a system or even an entire network. When combine with forensic analysis, a penetration test can re-create the attack chain or validate a new security controls set up that will ruin a similar attack in the future.

If truth be told, defining the scope and nature of pentesting is greatly dependent on the individuals that determine an organization’s goals. Those individuals influence some aspects in terms of engagement such as selection possibility, assumptions and even funding ceilings that limit the amount of time testers need to figure out and explore organization’s assets.

Key Takeaways

When it comes to your data, your business and your employees, one thing that matters most, real-world security. The benefits you get from a penetration test is greatly dependent on your penetration testing team and how they cater their reporting to your company’s needs.

Investing in a penetration test is something like preparing yourself for an MRI, it’s something that you never want and you hope the results come back negative, but still you do it as you want to know the real cause and how things look like in the real-world.

So, if your business hasn’t got penetration testing services yet, it is high time to check your business website, app, system or company to its vulnerabilities. Get ready, as you will be horrified to reveal so many errors in your system.